


Serendipity

by EgoDominusTuus



Series: Lady in the Lake [4]
Category: Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Budding Relationship, F/F, Pride, Searching, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 07:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6556678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgoDominusTuus/pseuds/EgoDominusTuus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(The Lone Wanderer) Kyler has always been looking for <i>something</i>. She just never knew that she'd find it in a lion with so much pride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serendipity

  I hadn't always expected life to turn out the way that it did. In fact, I was content, for a time, to be a resident of Vault 101, even though I felt like something was missing. There was a lack of excitement, sure - I worked on Pip boys. Though learning the inner mechanics of the contraptions proved interesting, it didn't take me long to master it. I was working alongside Stanley Armstrong... and it didn't take me very long to outstrip him in the department. I didn't let it go to my head - I was, after all, my father's daughter. Even if I sometimes resented it, and even if I sometimes found myself irritable with the fact that people compared the two of us... I had inherited his thirst for knowledge, and his sharp aptitude for learning.

  There wasn't even a lack of excitement in the romance department to cause my listlessness. Though Butch DeLoria had been a bully in my youth, hormones have a funny way of making people forget their petty squabbling. My father had sent me straight to him after I'd cut the long crimson tresses of my hair off in a ragtag fashion, but Butch and I had already gotten to  _ know  _ each other by then. There were nights spent in heat and darkness, with fumbling fingers and bare flesh trying to figure out how to best make things work. We were young, we were inexperienced... but I never felt like I was in love. I  _ loved  _ him, in the sense that he was my first, and in the sense that he was really quite soft, beneath his  _ Tunnel Snake  _ attitude. But even fumbling fingers and hot kisses couldn't make me feel content - even then, I knew that something wasn't right.

   Even then, I knew that I needed something  _ more _ . Butch didn't take it poorly; I think a part of him was looking for something else, too... so he turned from lover to friend, and I was okay with that. 

   And then, everything changed. My world was turned upside down. I'd grown up my entire life with the people of Vault 101 as friends, as family. We were a tight knit community, because we didn't have any other option - we were all we had.

   At one simple command from the Overseer, they turned on me. Everything that I'd known fell apart, and in the end, it was only Amata and Butch who actually stood by my side. In the end, I'd had to leave them behind and step out into the world...

  Though the air was irradiated, and though the sun was brighter than anything I'd ever seen before... for the first time, something inside of my chest was awakening. Even though I had less answers than I'd ever had before, and even though I was  _ lost _ for the first time... I felt  _ alive _ setting foot outside of Vault 101.

  I felt like, for the first time, I was going in the direction that I needed to go. I was  _ becoming _ .

  I just wasn't sure  _ what _ I was becoming. I had a pistol and a bat, and that was all... and I quickly learned that the malice within Vault 101 had been nothing in comparison to the threats in the Wasteland. I only just made it to Megaton, and I think the only reason they really accepted me there had to do with the fact that I disarmed the nuclear warhead sitting in the middle of their town as though I was just taking apart another Pip Boy and reprogramming it. It wasn't hard, but they acted like it was some feat of magic, something that they would be forever indebted to me for. They gave me a house... and for the first time, I actually felt like I had a  _ home _ .

  There were days when I missed the Vault - when I missed my Dad's warm smile, or Stanley's soft laugh when I finished all of our day's work within a half hour. I missed Butch's warm arms, even though kisses had just turned to hugs... and I missed Amata's qippy nature; the people of the Wasteland quite often missed the mark that my sarcasm was trying to hit. I was practical to a fault, and it made me more blunt sometimes than I needed to be... but the people loved me. They loved the fact that I couldn't seem to help but  _ help _ . There was something inside of me, though, that couldn't stand the thought of leaving the people here in need - they hadn't grown up in security, with food and water and no worries.

  I felt  _ privileged _ , and the guilt of that burden led me to make a name for myself. So much so that people were sent to kill me for doing too much  _ good _ .

  I didn't feel guilt when I gunned them down - apparently, my aptitude for learning extended to firearms. In my youth, I'd spent my downtime practicing with the BB gun that I'd gotten for my tenth birthday. Apparently, the basic knowledge of that practice could be applied to everyday situations - and there wasn't a target that I couldn't hit.

  Still, there was a part of me that  _ yearned _ , and I couldn't figure out what it was that I wanted. There was something more, some purpose that I had yet to fulfill, and until I found that, I knew that I wasn't going to be happy - I thought, for a time, that it was my drive to find my Father.

  I thought, for a time, that if I found him and we were out in this new world together, that everything would be all right.

  I didn't realize, then, that what I wanted was something altogether different.

  I found it by accident, while looking for the radio station and Three Dog. I found it clad in power armor, with a sharp tone and a voice of command that rang through me. She was beautiful - tall, blonde, with blue eyes that burned with crisp intelligence and determination. She was  _ proud _ like a lion, and her very  _ existence  _ resonated with my own and told me that this was it. This was what I'd been missing. .

  I discovered the answer to my lifelong question in a woman named Sarah Lyons, and I knew then what I'd been looking for. It was  _ her _ . And I was found and lost all in one breath.

**Author's Note:**

> So... this may be a one-shot, or a may continue on with it. I'm not sure. I know I want to write more about Kyler/Sarah and their relationship - especially since this fits into my Lady in the Lake verse. We shall see!


End file.
